C-U-Next-Tuesday: Now with extra Tuesday sauce

So, I suppose I've skipped quite a few Tuesdays, but now I'm back like bandeau bathing suits in 2000.

In this week's edition, I will be awkward AND cunty. It's a special day.

Oh, no, it's fine. Of course you can interrupt me with a query! What's that you say? You haven't voted yet for Out of Tune Idol Season 2 Week 1, and you have noticed I have received 0 votes except for the thousand votes I cast for myself? Well, let me guide you over here to Jules' blog, Mean Girl Garage, where you can go ahead and help me advance to Week 2.

I'll wait.

*muzak*

Well, now. That's better. Thank you! Your votes are appreciated. Since I did not receive 50 votes on this post and comments now are closed, I will make you another deal. (Let's be fair: I set the count to 50 because I knew it was highly unlikely.)

If I win Out of Tune Idol Season 2, I will show the banana/drunk singing video AND the Out of Tune Idol Season 2 Behind the Music video PHubby has started. You're welcome.

Down to the dirty ...

So, PHubby takes the trash out to the curb this morning because it's trash day. He comes back inside and is washing his hands at the sink when he says to me, "You know how the trash can has big writing on one side that says something like 'THIS SIDE TO CURB,' and a special handle on it for the truck thingy to grab and pick it up and dump it?"

"Of course," I reply.

"Well, sometimes, I look down the street to see of the [neighbors 2 doors down] have their trash can out, yet, and they NEVER -"

I put my hand up, as if to say, "stop right there."

"I. have been. silently judging them for years, based on that," I tell him, and it's true. I feel a twinge of superiority every time I drive through the alley behind our homes and see their trash can pointed the wrong way.

PHubby gives me the "Right?!" look and continues to say how it's such a small little touch of common courtesy.

Let's be honest: he's preaching to the choir. Their boy used to cut our lawn, but he was terrible. He would only mow when he felt like earning 20 bucks, not when the grass needed it.

He used to zip through our yard, not doing the trim, cutting the corners, and racing home without asking for payment. I suspected it was because he had to get it done before he got some sort of privilege, and he didn't want us to call him out on doing a shitty job.

When I could, I would try to catch him at his house to pay him right after he was done, but he already would have gone.

Little fucker.

One day, Momma Neighbor and Son Neighbor came to the front door, and she asked if he'd been doing an OK job because he had mowed our lawn three times (in 11 days - WTF?!) and hadn't been paid.

I said, "Oh, sure, sure," because I was being too nice.

She looked around my yard and said, "Well, I can see the trim needs to be done."

I wanted to say, "Lady, this kid hasn't edged the yard all summer. You live two doors down, and your lawn is fucking immaculate. Don't tell me he doesn't know how to do this. He's a greedy little fucker who wants 20 bucks for 20 minutes worth of work, and he has not once done a good job. Your son doesn't understand what a good day's work is."

But I didn't.

I said something about how we were both very busy right now and were not always home. I asked if the boy would put a sticky note on the front door when he had mowed, so we would have some sort of record.

I also said we were getting ready to pull some old shrubs and plant some new things in the front garden, and we'd had a lot on our plates.

And then she looked around our yard again, and she said, "Wellllll, taking care of a home is a big responsibility," her voice going up again to really drive home the condescension.

Really, lady? You're judging me for how shoddy the grass looks? Your fucking imbecile offspring did this and is robbing me blind in the process, I thought.

Soon after that, we got a lawn mower.

No matter how chummy she has tried to be with me since then, I have always remembered her snippy little comment that day.

That's why, when I pass her backward trash can, I think about how the garbage truck driver who is always so nice to us (and has more than once pulled our trash can out from behind our house and walked it all the way to the street to empty it when we forgot to put it out) must think the neighbors are big assholes, and I smile.

Also, I made a voodoo lawn doll out of AstroTurf, and I'm using it to infect their newly sodded lawn with disease and pestilence. So far, it seems only to have worked on Poppa Neighbor's head (stop with the wispy comb-over, dude).

I don't care, though. I have labeled them jerks, and I'm sticking with it.

They had a fucking sprinkler system installed, too, as if they've never heard of water conservation. That makes them even bigger assholes, in my book.

Fin.

(Please remember to vote! Another post coming later today!)

EDIT: The awkward part is in the next post!